Little golden nuggets of goodness, chickpeas are packed with protein, fiber, iron, zinc and folate. Available dried, already cooked in cans or (more recently) BPA-free cartons, they are a delicious addition to soups, stews, chili, salads, sautés, as well as the star ingredient in hummus. As a pescatarian, I eat a little fish and seafood and lots of vegetarian dishes. Chickpeas are a staple in my pantry. As I was planning meals a couple weeks ago, I spied a chickpea and vegetable tagine dish I wanted to try: Chickpea and Vegetable TagineCooking Light JULY 2014Yield: Serves 4 (serving size: 1/2 cup quinoa and 1 cup zucchini mixture)

This was a delightful summer meal, and the leftovers were even better for lunch the next day after the flavors meshed wonderfully together. It got me to thinking – with all the focus on vegan and vegetarian diets, the chickpea is now a fairly standard part of American diets. But this wasn’t always the case – when I was growing up in the 1970s and 80s, chickpeas were not nearly as popular (or available). I think the first time I tried them was as part of my college cafeteria’s salad bar. When did recipes featuring this powerful legume first show up in American cookbooks? Chickpeas are a true “ancient” food – along with wheat and barley they are one of the earliest cultivated crops in the Fertile Crescent around 4,000 B.C. Later other cultures adopted the versatile pea, also called the garbanzo bean, including those in the Mediterranean and southwest Asia. They were first brought to the New World by Spanish and Portuguese conquerors in the 1500s, where they were integrated into the dishes of Mexico and the American southwest. Other immigrants to the U.S. also brought them later from places such as Italy, the Middle East and India. Oddly enough, it appears many Americans first used chickpeas to make coffee before readily adopting them as a food source. In fact, a letter penned by Thomas Jefferson (dated Monticello, Feb. 14, 1824) and printed two years later in The New England Farmer states, "The coffee bean, from its mild and smooth bitter, its essential oil, and the aroma that gives it, is become the favorite beverage of the civilized world. Many attempts have been made to find substitutes for it, trying, chiefly, vegetable substances. They have succeeded in furnishing a bitter, but never the peculiar flavor of the bean. As to the bitter, the chick pea is the best substitute I have ever tried.” The American Agriculturist (1862) also mentions chickpeas for the purpose of making coffee. I didn't see any actual recipes featuring chickpeas in U.S. cookbooks until the 1880s. One of the first was for a chick pea soup in an 1882 cookbook called 366 menus and 1200 recipes in French and Englishby Léon baron Brisse. As indicated by the title, many of these dishes were of French origin:

Chick pea soup. Soak the peas for twenty-four hours in water in which spinach has been boiled; cook them in water, season with onions, a bouquet of mixed herbs and salt; sprinkle some slices of bread with olive oil or melted butter, place in the soup-tureen, pour some of the boiling soup over them; when swollen, add the remainder of the soup and peas, and serve.

By the 1890s a couple more recipes containing chickpeas turned up, including the Spanish specialty Olla Podrida, a highly seasoned meat and vegetable stew, and a Bolivian dish called milk soup, which along with the chick peas, also contained chicken, crawfish and eggs in a milky broth. But it wasn’t until the second half of 20th century that chickpea dishes began to show up with more regularity.

My all-time favorite cookbook is James Beard’s American Cookery (1972). This is among the first resources I turn to when researching American cuisine, so I was curious to see what Beard had to say about chickpeas. He mentions their use in Latin, North Africa and Middle Eastern countries and recommends buying the canned pre-cooked versions instead of the dried variety that require a lengthy soaking and cooking time. Although he only lists three recipes, they all sound delicious: Baked Garbanzos (a mix of chick peas, tomatoes and onions baked in the oven); Sautéed Garbanzos (chick peas and garlic sautéed with a generous amount of butter and olive oil); and Garbanzos with Sesame Oil Sauce (Hummus bi Tahini). Hummus is one of my favorite foods, so I knew this was the dish I had to try. (Note that Beard says to use pita bread “if available.” Lucky for us that pita is now ubiquitous in most grocery stores. Same with his recommendation to use sesame oil – I went ahead and used tahini since I had some on hand – another item that is more easily found in most stores these days). In any case, this hummus is excellent:

A Middle East dish usually served tucked into a half round of the puffy, hollow bread called pitta.

Press the well-drained garbanzos through a sieve or food mill to make a puree. Add the oil and lemon juice alternately, a little at a time. Add the crushed garlic and salt to taste. Blend thoroughly. Check for seasoning, adding more lemon juice if necessary. Chill in the refrigerator a few hours before serving.

To serve, heap the mixture in a bowl and top with a liberal sprinkling of chopped parsley. Serve as an appetizer with pieces of the flat Middle Eastern bread, if available, or with very thin slices of your favorite bread.

Spiced Chickpea Patties (Ujjah min Ghayr Bayd)

Spiced Chickpea Patties (Ujjah min Ghayr Bayd)

1 cup dried chickpeas, soaked overnight and drained (or 1 cup canned)

1 large onion, peeled and left whole

1 cup olive oil

¾ tbsp. red miso

½ tsp salt

1/3 tsp ground coriander

½ tsp black pepper

1 ½ tbsp. flour

Place the chickpeas in a saucepan and cover with 4 inches of water. Cook over medium heat for ½ hours or until soft. Remove from heat and drain. (If using pre-cooked chickpeas, simply remove from carton or can and drain.

While the chickpeas are cooking, boil the onion with 2 tbsp of oil over medium heat for ½ hour or until soft, then remove from heat and drain.

Place the chickpeas and onion in a food processor and process well. Transfer to a bowl, add remaining ingredients except oil, and mix well.

Form the mixture into patties, using a little flour on the palms of hands, and set aside.

Over medium heat, heat enough of the remaining oil to fry a first batch of the patties until brown, gently turning over once. Add more oil and fry the remainder of the patties. If the patties begin to fall apart before cooking, add a little flour to the palms of hands and reform them.

For good measure and in celebration of the chickpeas’s ancient heritage, I decided to round out my chickpea trifecta by making chickpea patties from a lovely cookbook called Scheherazade’s Feasts: Foods of the Medieval Arab World. I tucked these into pita pockets with some lettuce and tomato and served alongside a cucumber salad dressed with yogurt and mint. These patties are delightfully spicy, so the cucumbers were a refreshing contrast.

Other sources: The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink ed. by Andrew F. Smith